I couldn't imagine...
Sean Bell's parents can't bear to listen as medical examiner describes his death
Tuesday, March 25th 2008, 11:12 AM
One bullet at a time, a medical examiner described today how police killed Sean Bell in a 50-shot barrage.
Four bullets were found in Bell's body, Dr. Michael Greenberg testified at the trial of the three detectives who felled the 23-year-old groom on his wedding day.
"It tore the vocal chords," Greenberg said of the bullet that pierced the right side of Bell's neck - and robbed him of the ability to call for help.
"After a perferation of the larynx, he may be able to make gutteral sounds, but he wouldn't be able to produce words or meaningful sounds," he said. "It was capable of causing death."
A second bullet hit Bell in the right shoulder and wound up in his chest wall, Greenberg said.
A third bullet entered Bell's body through the back of his torso, ripping through his liver, diaphragm and a lung before lodging in his spine.
"Fatal in and of itself,' Greenberg said of that bullet.
At that point, Bell's parents, Valerie and William, could take no more of Greenberg's clinical description of their son's death - and quickly walked out of the Queens courtroom. Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, didn't move and sat grim-faced through the testimony.
Greenberg said the fourth bullet shattered a bone in Bell's right arm.
Asked how long Bell could have lasted, given his mortal wounds, the doctor said not long. "The period of survival may have ranged from several seconds to minutes to even close to an hour," he said.
A father of two, Bell was killed on Nov. 25, 2006 around the corner from the Kahlua Cabaret, a strip joint in Jamaica where he had held his bachelor party. His buddies, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were badly wounded.
Prosecutors say they were victims of trigger happy cops who opened fire without identifying themselves as police. The defense said the detectives opened fire on Bell's car after he rammed into undercover Detective Gescard Isnora - and because they believed Guzman was reaching for a gun.
No gun was ever found.
Bell, as it turned out, should not have been behind the wheel - he had twice the legal limit of alchohol in his system.
Greenberg said the 5-foot 9-inch, 179-pound man had consumed the equivalent of six 12 oz. beers, eight glasses of wine, or five two-ounce portions of hard liquor "depending on the type of drink."
"Driving skills are impaired," defense lawyer Anthony Ricco said. "You motor skills are now markedly impaired. Judgment is markedly impaired. You become loud, aggressive, beligerant."
"Possibly, yes," Greenberg said.
Greenberg was on the stand a day after the grand jury testimony of Detective Michael Oliver, who fired 31 of the shots - including the one that killed Bell - was read in court.
Oliver said they started shooting because they feared for their lives. "I didn't want to die," he said.
Isnora and Oliver are charged with manslaughter. Detective Marc Cooper is charged with reckless endangerment. The trio were part of an undercover unit doing a prostitution sting at the girlie joint on the morning Bell died.
Defense lawyers say Oliver, Cooper and Isnora had reason to fear Bell and his buddies because the groom had quarrelled with another man outside the club - and Guzman had threatened to get a gun to settle the score.
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